Oil Level

[TheRealDC]

Folks - just want to ask opinions here, as since my 1200 mile service I've now (this morning) had to put my 3rd litre of oil in my M3. The car has now done nearly 15,000 miles, but my previous E46 M3 never had to be topped up between services. I spoke to my dealer today and they say that they have to note the mileage now and assess when it next requires oil before they can contact BMW to determine if there is a problem. Otherwise the car runs fine. It was run in carefully in the same way as my E46, hence my concern. Do you think this level of oil consumption is excessive compared to other cars?



Cheers .. DC

[marwan]

Originally Posted by TheRealDC

Folks - just want to ask opinions here, as since my 1200 mile service I've now (this morning) had to put my 3rd litre of oil in my M3. The car has now done nearly 15,000 miles, but my previous E46 M3 never had to be topped up between services. I spoke to my dealer today and they say that they have to note the mileage now and assess when it next requires oil before they can contact BMW to determine if there is a problem. Otherwise the car runs fine. It was run in carefully in the same way as my E46, hence my concern. Do you think this level of oil consumption is excessive compared to other cars?



Cheers .. DC

i had the E60 2006 M5 and that monster was thirsty, i had to top up almost ever 2000miles, it was pathetic, so i just learned to keep two 1 liter of oil bottles in my trunk just in case the oil drops so fast since it was never too accurate.

[GMWNashville]

its a fact of life that engines do use oil...EVERY engine uses some amount of oil..be it small or large. some bmw engines tend to use more oil than others...typically the m engines do use a bit of oil...id guess its just how they are designed.

[rfedele]

Had my 1st service done a couple months back. I just happen to be cruising through the idrive a few days ago and went to the "engine oil" area. It reads "level too high" or something similar. called my SA with my concern that it might have been overfilled at the 1st service and that perhaps engine oil frothing might be occurring.

The SA seems to be very knowledgeable and is an M enthusiast. He assured me no more than 9 quarts were put in - that since the M oil does not come in huge vats, but only quart bottles, these errors don't occur - service guy counts out the bottles, gives oil to tech, tech counts bottles etc.

He also said with the oil system in these cars it would take around 12 quarts for frothing to occur.

He owns an older M3 (I think an '89 but with an engine from E46) which he tracks. He added that many guys tracking E90 M3s are running 10 quarts of oil.